Snohomish girl’s friends seeking donations for funeral expenses

SNOHOMISH — Friends of a teen who died Thursday at Seattle Children’s Hospital are asking for help to pay for her funeral expenses.

Anais Garcia, 14, was a freshman at Snohomish High School. She was diagnosed with hydrocephalus,* said Silvia Bauman, who works as a translator for the Snohomish School District and who is speaking for the family. Hydrocephalus is an excessive accumulation of fluid in the brain.

Bauman estimates that the funeral and plot at Snohomish’s Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery will cost about $8,000.

Bauman said that Garcia complained of a headache on June 7 and went to bed. When her parents checked on her later, she was unresponsive and was taken first to Providence Regional Medical Center Everett and then transferred to Seattle Children’s Hospital. By the time she arrived at Children’s, “she was pretty much in a coma,” Bauman said.

Bauman, who also is on the board of directors of Christmas House in Everett, began organizing financial help for the family. She said they have had ongoing major medical expenses due to their daughter’s hydrocephalus. In addition, her father, Enrique Garcia, was injured at his job and is not able to work, she said.